Arthur Weasley Plays 'HP:QWC'
by Curlyjimsam
Summary: Arthur Weasley plays EA Games' 'Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup' on his new Muggle computer-thingy. My way of reviewing the game.
1. The Funny Looking Muggle Quidditch Game

Arthur Weasley Plays _Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup_

_by Arrows' Biggest Fan_

DISCLAIMER: _Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup _is a computer game made by Electronic Arts. Arthur Weasley, the Burrow, Quidditch and the rest of the Harry Potter universe were created by Joanne Rowling and the rights are held by Warner Brothers, who insist on making mildly good films and pretty bad merchandise. I am making no profit whatsoever. Please do not send me to Azkaban.

I am writing this fanfiction because it was the best way I could think of reviewing EA Games' _Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup_ from the point of view of someone who thinks totally and utterly that the Harry Potter 'canon', and none of the rubbish Warner Bros. have dreamt up, is correct in the HP universe – personified by Arthur Weasley. As I'm British, please e-mail me (_arrow@free3mail.cjb.net_) if you don't understand any words or phrases. Also, you may like to visit my website at _www.arrowsharry.cjb.net _and anyone who likes computer games (and reading this, no doubt you do) can download some I have made with Mark Overmars' Game Maker at New Infinity's website (_www.newinfinity.cjb.net_). There are games for the wizarding sports of Quidditch (not quite as advanced as EA's) and Swivenhodge.

**Chapter 1: The Funny-Looking Muggle Quidditch Game**

Arthur Weasley was really quite proud of his Muggle computer-thingy, which sat in the garage at the Burrow, powered by the best magical alternative to its electric supply he could find – Ron's old broomstick, which was connected to it with a thin piece of wire. You could do a lot of fun things on the computer, like write Ministry reports and play card games. You could even draw pictures and talk to people on the other side of the world through the Internetty.

The Internetty was how Arthur found out about the funny Muggle Quidditch game. There was talk about it on one of the 'Harry Potter' fan sites. They were a bit like building sites, Arthur thought. Most of them seemed to be in total turmoil. That was probably how they got their name. Maybe the mess was due to the spider. Arthur had never met it, but there did seem to be a lot of talk about the horrible bugs and viruses that lurked in its Web. Arthur hoped that they weren't too catching. The Web was supposed to be very big, worldwide in fact – what if he caught a nasty foreign disease?

Arthur liked the Harry Potter sites. He felt like he knew more than any of the Muggles in them, which didn't happen anywhere else. Whenever he tried to post a comment they told him to 'stop pretending you're a wizard. If you want to do that join one of the RPGs.' Arthur didn't know what a RPG was. He hoped it wasn't bad. It must have been strange for Harry, being so famous whilst nobody knew it.

Anyway, Arthur found out about the Muggle Quidditch game on the Internetty. He even sure some 'screenshots'. He hoped it hadn't hurt the screen when they shot it. The pictures looked a bit strange, not at all like real Quidditch players.

After work on Friday, 21st November, Arthur visited a Muggle shop. He had made sure he had all the right money – £500. He hoped it would be enough. The shop was called WH Smith. Arthur was amazed at what he saw. Muggle newspapers, Muggle pens, Muggle 'paper', Muggle magazines – even a large Muggle book about Harry Potter. It was big and yellow, and had a picture of a bird that just could have been a phoenix on the front.

Every shelf was neatly labelled with the category of goods, and Arthur soon found the computer games. He glanced down, and soon saw what he wanted. _PC CD-ROM _read the front of the box. _Harry Potter™ Quidditch™ World Cup. 3+™ www.pegi.info. WB Interactive Entertainment™. EA Games™_. Arthur wondered what 'TM' meant. Maybe it meant that the Muggles had stolen it. Arthur would have hated to have 'TM' after his name.

Also on the front of the box was a picture of a young looking Harry reaching out to catch the Golden Snitch on a broomstick. Lucius Malfoy's son was behind him, an evil look on his face. Both were wearing huge amounts of some sort of armour. They looked like Americanfootyball players on broomsticks. The two boys were flying over a rough imitation of a Quidditch pitch.  

Arthur picked the game of the shelf and looked at the label. _£2999_ it said. Arthur picked it off the shelf anyway. Maybe he could trick the Muggle at the counter.

Arthur had to queue to buy the game. When he finally got to the counter he placed the game on it and smiled at the Muggle. A badge told him her name was Tracey. She took the game and beeped at it with a strange device. Then she took off its thick plastic covering marked 'Security' and said, "Twenty nine ninety nine, please."

Arthur handed over all ten of the notes. Tracey looked at him oddly and handed back nine of them together with one marked '20' and a small copper coin. She then printed off a small piece of paper covered in blue writing. Arthur read it interestedly, folded it neatly and put it in his pocket. Tracey seemed to have done everything, so he took the game, said "Thank you," and walked away.

He read the summary on the back of the game on the train journey home. A lot of men in ties and black jackets looked at him strangely. Arthur ignored them and read. Apparently he needed to mount his broomstick for the favourite sport of witches and wizards. He could lead any of the Hogwarts™ houses to victory in the Hogwarts Quidditch™ Cup. Then he had to select an international team and use his new skills to take aim at the Quidditch World Cup. Then it repeated it all in different words, giving each house's name with 'TM' after it and then telling him to pursue the greatest Quidditch prize of all. Then it told him to play the best Quidditch teams in the world, each with its own distinctive playing style – USA, England, France, Germany, the Nordic team, Japan, Spain, Australia and Bulgaria, who featured Viktor Krum. Arthur wondered which Muggle idiot had written this. The US and Spain, best in the world? What had happened to Ireland, and all of the other good teams? What was this 'Nordic team' rubbish? And Bulgaria had only one player who was worth mentioning, and that was Krum. All of their other players were pathetic. And the 'TM's were beginning to annoy him.

Reading on, he found he could go head-to-head with his friends in two-player action and master six different Quidditch challenges around Hogwarts. The rest of the writing was boring numbers and copyrights, so Arthur looked at the pictures. The captions told him to beat Bludgers, score with his Chasers and catch the Golden Snitch™. The players all seemed to be wearing armour. From what he could see of the stadia, they seemed to consist mainly of tall towers, and the pictures of the goalposts showed them at different heights. Had the Muggles ever seen a game of Quidditch? Had they considered the implications of defending goals at different levels? Arthur put the game down, yawned, and started to read the elderly Muggle next to him's newspaper. It was rather boring really: some drivel about some Ian Huntley and Iraq. Arthur was glad when the Muggle turned to the sports pages, but they weren't much better: who on earth was Jonny Wilkinson, and what was rugby? Arthur checked his game was safe, then fell asleep in the smooth, gliding train.

A/N: May I wish everyone reading this a very happy New Year!


	2. The Handbook

**Chapter 2: The Handbook**

Molly wasn't very happy when Arthur turned up hours after dinnertime. But she served him his cold meat and potatoes all the same, then went off into the living room to read _Witch Weekly_.

Arthur wasn't really interested in his tea, so he nibbled half-heartedly at a bit of pork whilst reading the little booklet that came with the shiny metal disk. Its front cover was more or less identical to that of the case. On the back there was some quite interesting writing about Electronic Arts' fellytone number and a stamped number. Arthur turned the handbook over, opened it, and started to read.

It began with some warnings and precautions. Arthur read them with interest. He didn't think he had a projection television, he wasn't epileptic and he would try to follow the guidelines given. He turned over the page. There was a long table of contents, and after that several pages about installation. It seemed to make things quite clear.

Arthur read on to find the controls section. The table was captioned: 'Before you can dominate the air like the Bulgarian national team …' Arthur crossed out 'dominate' with his quill, thought for a while, and replaced it with 'fall out of'. He read the 'general gameplay' controls. Apart from something about attacking Bludgers, the moves seemed quite realistic. Arthur decided that he was going to be getting to know his keyboard very well.

The next section was headed 'Introduction'. It seemed a bit late for one, but Arthur read it anyway. It welcomed him to the magical world of _Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup_ and told him that Quidditch was an incredibly exciting, high-speed, broomstick-based game that had been enjoyed by witches and wizards alike since its eleventh-century beginnings on Queerditch Marsh in England. Well, who would have thought that?

The next paragraph described Quidditch as a cross between the non-magical sports of football and basketball, with the speed and manoeuvring skills of ice hockey – whatever that was. It went on to say that it contained all the excitement, teamwork and flair of those games, but it was played on flying broomsticks.

The paragraph after that was even worse. It told Arthur that he could learn the rules and the skills necessary to play at Hogwarts, collect Quidditch cards and go to this year's World Cup if he was any good. This seemed very odd, as the Hogwarts teams weren't exactly brilliant, Quidditch cards seemed a bit babyish and there wasn't a World Cup this year.

The following paragraph was quite good, and included a nice pun. 'Top-flight magical sport'. Arthur chuckled, and choked on his potato. He read on: Game Features. Wasn't that what the last paragraph was about?

It told him to learn the basics of Quidditch with Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Cedric Diggory or Cho Chang. Arthur knew Harry, of course, and Cedric had been the boy who You-Know-Who had killed when he'd come back. Draco Malfoy was Lucius' son, and there might just have been a Chang on the Tutshill Tornadoes. It was a weird choice of people. Then he was instructed to take on Slytherin, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff for a chance to win the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup, and to play an Exhibition Match. This meant a friendly. Apparently he could also by broomsticks with Quidditch Cards, play in the Quidditch World Cup with the best Quidditch teams and in the best stadiums, and master electrifying Special Moves. Arthur felt a thrill of excitement. He was going to be able to try out the Wronski Feint for the first time in thirty years. There were then a couple of Internetty addresses and a complicated list of controls.

The next section was entitled 'Quidditch for Beginners'. Arthur had half a mind to skip it, but read anyway. It was a brief overview for people who hadn't read _Quidditch Through The Ages_. Arthur had learnt the basic rules of Quidditch before he'd been able to read at all, let alone get through a whacking great textbook. He'd seen the book in passing in some Muggle bookshops. There were a lot of them in a very small space, as if for Muggles the book was smaller: perhaps less than one hundred pages. Dumbledore had released it to Muggles, but even he wouldn't want them to read the whole lot.

Arthur read about the pitch. The description was correct, although the picture next to it wasn't. There was also a bit about pitches being made of ice and water, which Arthur presumed had just been made up by the writer. Then he scanned the section about the balls: this was correct too, if somewhat over-summarised, and the pictures were terrible. The final part of the section was about the players, and again correct writing was backed up by terrible images. The players were wearing huge amounts of armour and robes that were open at the front and so short they looked like waistcoasts. Their broomsticks had some kind of footholds attached, for some reason, and the picture of the Seeker showed her – Arthur thought it was a woman, although he couldn't be sure – wearing goggles. What were they for? Exploding Bludgers hadn't been around for hundreds of years. The players were also sitting a long way back on their brooms, and Arthur wondered how they were meant to control them. In real life, the further forward you were, the better steering you had.

Arthur only skimmed the rest of the handbook: it was getting boring and was mainly concerned with telling him what to do after he'd started the game. He learned that to unlock the World Cup he first had to win at Hogwarts, and discovered that the levels of difficultly were named after broomsticks, namely those that had been the best available a decade ago. There were a lot of lists of names, and some sort of help page, followed by a copyright notice. Arthur wondered if he was a character related to Harry Potter, and thus copyright Warner Bros. He hoped not.

Arthur finished his meal, picked up the disk, and went through to the garage to install the game.


End file.
